My Testimony for the Nation’s First Hearing on Ghost Kitchens
Today, I provided a testimony for the New York City Council’s public hearing on the impact of ghost kitchens on small businesses alongside restaurateurs, commissioners, and interest groups. It is the first government inquiry of its kind in the US. Below is my full testimony:
Council Member Gjonaj,
My name is Matt Newberg, I have spent the past eight years living in New York working as a product manager and entrepreneur in the technology field after graduating from the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania. Last summer, I released a 25-minute investigative online video that featured three delivery-only, ghost kitchen providers in Los Angeles, interviewing restaurateurs from each of them to make better sense of this new trend. While this began as a side project, the response from this piece launched me on a new path to form HNGRY, a new media platform that examines how technology shapes the way people eat. I have done extensive research into online food delivery and ghost kitchen providers, visiting different sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York and speaking with as many restaurateurs, real estate operators, and…
